Repeal presidential term limits?

Tuesday

Dec 3, 2013 at 5:10 PMDec 3, 2013 at 5:24 PM

We’re carrying a column today by Scripps writer Dan K. Thomasson questioning whether the amendment limiting presidents to two terms was, in retrospect, not that great an idea. It’s not that he wants Obama to seek a third term (neither to I). He notes that no president since FDR would likely to have considered a third term, with the possible exception of Clinton. His point is that the two-term limit is a big reason why second presidential terms tend to be such duds. Once you’re on your way out, neither your allies nor your adversaries have to take you seriously:

Barack Obama is a perfect example. His chances of accomplishing much more than straightening out the mess in his one domestic initiative, the Affordable Care Act if that is even possible, already are slim with such issues as tax and immigration reform and controlling runaway entitlements probably not likely.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but one of the things I’ve enjoyed most in the past year has been seeing Democrats freed from the necessity of calibrating their actions and positions to avoid doing anything that might hurt the president’s re-election. For the first time in decades, what John Dean called “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” – or, if you will, the Warren Wing – is reasserting itself. If liberal Democrats hadn’t been freed by Obama’s lame-duck status, they wouldn’t have developed a backbone. Larry Summers would head the Fed, we’d be at war in Syria and chained CPI would be on a fast track (btw, as I predicted, some House Republicans are now proposing higher Pentagon spending, to be paid for by cutting Social Security benefits).

If anything, I think the Democrats are transitioning into the post-Obama world more quickly than Republicans. The Democrats’ love affair with Obama didn’t last nearly as long as the Republicans’ obsession with him.

Rick Holmes

We’re carrying a column today by Scripps writer Dan K. Thomasson questioning whether the amendment limiting presidents to two terms was, in retrospect, not that great an idea. It’s not that he wants Obama to seek a third term (neither to I). He notes that no president since FDR would likely to have considered a third term, with the possible exception of Clinton. His point is that the two-term limit is a big reason why second presidential terms tend to be such duds. Once you’re on your way out, neither your allies nor your adversaries have to take you seriously:

Barack Obama is a perfect example. His chances of accomplishing much more than straightening out the mess in his one domestic initiative, the Affordable Care Act if that is even possible, already are slim with such issues as tax and immigration reform and controlling runaway entitlements probably not likely.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but one of the things I’ve enjoyed most in the past year has been seeing Democrats freed from the necessity of calibrating their actions and positions to avoid doing anything that might hurt the president’s re-election. For the first time in decades, what John Dean called “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” – or, if you will, the Warren Wing – is reasserting itself. If liberal Democrats hadn’t been freed by Obama’s lame-duck status, they wouldn’t have developed a backbone. Larry Summers would head the Fed, we’d be at war in Syria and chained CPI would be on a fast track (btw, as I predicted, some House Republicans are now proposing higher Pentagon spending, to be paid for by cutting Social Security benefits).

If anything, I think the Democrats are transitioning into the post-Obama world more quickly than Republicans. The Democrats’ love affair with Obama didn’t last nearly as long as the Republicans’ obsession with him.